Learning A Lesson

It’s been a great ride since May 17 when ereadernewstoday featured One Night in Bridgeport.  As I’ve written before, over 1,000 people have downloaded the book since then.  Cost to them: .99 per download.  I make 35% of that.  So, on the plus side, with all sales, somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,500 people have purchased Bridgeport and I’ve made over $1,000.  While the frequency of reviews has diminished, the few that are dribbling in are all excellent.  The latest, posted today, is this:

This was an awesome book. It clearly shows what can go wrong by making one little mistake. You had to feel sorry for the protagonist and you had to guess how it would end. Thoroughly enjoyable.

The last four reviews are all five stars, all from people I’ve never met.  They read my book and loved it.  That’s all good.

I keep waiting for sales to drop off and they don’t.  Every day anywhere from 5-35 people download it for the Kindle.  In the first three days of August, 21 people downloaded the book.  Twelve on August 3.

For weeks now, I’ve had a plan.  Fix the typos, add a few things about Weed Therapy to the inside material (favorable reviews, for instance), and re-publish Bridgeport for the Kindle, with a republished paperback to follow.  The paperback would also include an improved back cover.  When I did this, I planned on increasing the e-price of Bridgeport back to $2.99 to see what would happen.  So, I did that last night, at the end of a day when twelve people had bought the book for .99.

And today rolls along.  Nobody is buying it.  Nobody.   A book with 36 reviews on Amazon and an average rating of 4.5.  That readers think is “awesome.”

Meanwhile, Weed Therapy is out there also.  Priced at $2.99.  So far, ten people have downloaded it at that price.  I’m pretty sure I know just about every one of those ten people.  I ran a Goodreads Giveaway.  648 people signed up for it.  About half of those individuals added the book to their “to-read” list.  I spent a day on the front page of GoodKindles.  I’m still on the front page, just a little further down.  There was one e-book purchase after the giveaway and nothing in the 24 hours since the book showed up on GoodKindles.

This is frustrating, but I’m trying to be patient.  I believe I’ve put two novels out there that are worth $2.99.  I try very hard not to write garbage and expect people to buy it.  Both of these novels took me a couple of years to write. Bridgeport went through one major rewrite and two major edits.  Weed Therapy, I believe is something worth reading.   I don’t think it is asking too much for readers to pay less than they would for a latte when they’re willing to pay so much more for traditionally published authors.  What does it take to get people to pay $2.99 for an e-book?  Why should they if all the other self-published authors are pricing at .99 and free?  I would really like to keep the price of my books at $2.99, but if nobody is going to buy them at that price, what’s the point?

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Goodreads Giveaway

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Weed Therapy

by Mark Paxson

Giveaway ends August 02, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

It’s day two of my ten day giveaway period.  Three signed paperbacks.  I’d love to have my regular blog readers win, so if you’re signed up on Goodreads, go register to win a signed copy.  Even if you don’t, I’ll probably come up with some way to run a giveaway here at some point as well.

I’m A Review Whore

Yes, I admit it.  But aren’t we all?  All of us self-published authors, living and dying by what those unknown readers are thinking and saying about our books once they have them in their hot little hands.

This week has seen a new review on Amazon, and a new rating on Goodreads.  The review on Amazon is interesting.

Formerly a practicing attorney, I was delighted with how the author “transcribed” the trial. I almost didn’t read that far. The first four chapters needed considerable condensing. At first I thought I had mistakenly bought a contemporary romance novel, so I quickly skimmed those chapters until I bumped into him being interviewed by the investigators. From chapter 5 until the end I was captured.

However… I thought I’d upchuck if I read more about the snow in branches, etc. I, too, find falling snow to be beautiful, but its relevance was questionable. It did not add conflict or tension to the story. A little abridging would have been nice.

The resolution of the criminal trial was an excellent twist. A few things at the end were left unresolved and left to the reader’s imagination.

Based on that, the reader gave me five stars.  Which I’ll definitely take.  I also find it difficult to disagree with the concerns about the first couple of chapters.  What thrills me about this is her appreciation for how I wrote the trial.  I’ll let you in on a secret.  While my day job is being an attorney.  I don’t litigate and I have spent my life as far removed from criminal law as possible.  If I never step in a courtroom, I’ll be happy.   So, I was worried about the courtroom action in Bridgeport and some of the other details of the criminal process.  Having somebody more familiar with those aspects “endorsing” how I wrote that part of the story provides me with some comfort.  So, thanks reviewer.  Glad you got past those first few chapters.

As for Goodreads — the site is beginning to frustrate me.  I wonder if other authors have the same dilemma.  It shows the number of ratings and the number of reviews for the book.  Unlike with Amazon, Goodreads allows readers to just provide a rating on a five star scale.  Readers do not need to post a review of the book.  For a week now, it has shown Bridgeport having 15 ratings and six reviews.  But when I scroll through the Goodreads members who have the book in their library, I have found it impossible to find all of those ratings.  I did, however, find a new one this morning — posted on July 1.  Four stars.  Again, I’ll take it.  I just wish Goodreads had a bettter way of updating and tracking these things for the authors.

Time to get back to the writing.  I have unlocked the secret to Chapter 4 of The Irrepairable Past and am making progress there as well as with Chapter 6.

 

Bridgeport Update

After the flurry that was the week of January 27 — 5,900 free downloads over two days, followed by sales that doubled every day for four days — things have settled down.  This week has seen a steady 5-10 books sold each day, with a little more of them being actual purchases versus Kindle Lending Library borrows.  They remain almost entirely downloads and not paperback purchases.  Paperbacks have accounted for only four of the total.  The interesting thing is that every morning this week when I check the overnight numbers, it is exactly three more, and then during the course of the day, another three or four transactions occur.

Between Goodreads and Amazon, about ten more people have rated or reviewed it.  Over on Amazon, all reviews have been either four or five stars.  Meanwhile, on Goodreads, there’s an outlier.  Somebody rated it two stars, without posting a review.  I suppose I can’t make everybody happy, but I’d love to know why.  The overall ranking of the book in the various categories on Amazon has tanked.  No longer in the top 100 of anything.

I really can’t complain about the drop.  When I ran the promotions, I thought it might lead to a few sales.  Ten.  Twenty.  Maybe a bit more.  Maybe some of the free downloaders would post reviews.  Maybe.  Something.  I didn’t really know.  I never thought I would get to the point, however, where for one day, February 1, 2013, I sold more than 100 copies of a book I wrote.  I’ll ride the coattails of that for a bit.

The Final Word — and another Giveaway

On my Goodreads Giveaway for One Night in Bridgeport … over 830 people signed up.  More than 350 of them marked the book “to read.” The winners are located in Ohio and Louisiana.  Books shipped out today.  Here’s hoping the others follow through on that “to read” commitment.  OK, OK.  I’m not holding my breath.

You, one of my loyal readers, want your own signed copy of One Night in Bridgeport?  In the comments section, offer me  something.  One hundred words maximum.  Tell me something.  Your favorite post you’ve read here on this blog and why.  Your best words of wisdom.  A picture worth more than the maximum word count.  Anything and everything.  It is a completely open competition in which the winner will be based entirely on my subjective determination of the most worthy response.  Only one rule … one entry per person.  Maybe more than one person will win.